Former Wrington resident, Steve Egginton, is launching a new monthly magazine, The Mendip Times, which will celebrate life on the Mendips and surrounding areas.

Wrington’s website and cyber café will be featured in the first issue, published on June 1.

So will Wrington at War  student Jon Rata’s evocative video featuring the memories of local residents. This will have a special significance, since Steve has arranged for it to be made available on the worldwide web, thanks to a Bristol-based internet company, Coull, where he is a consultant.

It means that Wrington is probably the first village in the world to broadcast local video live on the internet. Is Wrington TV next?

You can find an icon on the Wrington website, linking to the video. So now Wringtonians worldwide will be able to watch it!

Steve, who lived in Ropers Lane, was head of news at HTV until last September, and was formerly producer of BBC Points West and deputy news editor of the Western Daily Press.

His vision is that The Mendip Times should be a quality free magazine which promotes life and activities in the whole area, involving local people in providing content.

Richard Thorn will be writing a column about the internet; Mary Payne is the magazine’s gardening expert; Nick Houlton will write about antiques; Les Davies, the Mendip warden, will have a monthly column; Chris Sperring will write about birds; Dave Irwin about caving  and there are many others!

Acker Bilk, Michael Eavis and Jane Guise, director of the Royal Bath and West Society, all feature in the first issue.

Steve said: “We don’t want to compete with the excellent local journals that already exist, but we think there is a place for a magazine that shares our pride in what we have in this area.”